My scenario - please advise me.

[EGG5 0]

hello, any help would be most appreciated.

I have being doing some reading and research and am trying to narrow down options for the following scenario:

My parents have had a new car which is parked in the street about 15metres away from the house.They want it watched because of potential vandals etc. Its mostly at night because my dad at work in the day. I have set up a http://www.swann.com/s/products/view/?product=1601

DVR4-1425 4 Channel D1 Digital Video Recorder & 2 x PRO-535 Cameras

My old man got this and I set it up for him. its a decent pacakage but the images are not that sharp. I think 1 cam will be enough. I must say though I have not set it up outside and just faced it out the second floor bedroom window to see what it was like before drilling holes for wires, which will not be great with the dumb siamese cable .

The problem with this though is the IR leds are totally useless as it reflects off the window. I "turned these off" though by covering them with white tac so can still get night images. These aint great though and can not see much detail in people. So basically looking for something better.

The hd sdi gear seems to be too expensive though, the dvr seems to start off in the £400/$600 range which is basically the whole budget. The IP stuff is also the same, though those do sure look good. The IP setup also seems more technical.

Would an upgrade to 960 analogue, perhaps with a IR illuminator placed away from the camera be any better? http://www.swann.com/s/products/view/?product=1545

I don't work for Swann by the way but they seem to be sold in shops a lot here in the UK and also my dad can get stuff a little cheaper from Maplin off some guy he got the dvr4-1425 off

Thanks if you read this far, I have droned on

[Kawboy12R 0]

IR through windows just plain doesn't work. Using a camera pointed reasonably straight through a window isn't too bad, especially with a hood over the lens and window to keep internal light glare on the glass from interfering with the camera. I prefer separate illuminators to built-in IR. Try to match the IR spread of the illuminator to the field of view of the camera. If you can't match them, you will probably want a wider spread of IR than the camera's FOV to try and eliminate hotspots and overexposure.